


Leaving Home

by Seascribe



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Canon Era, Coming of Age, Kidfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-19
Updated: 2011-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:05:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When Conn is fourteen, Marcus finds him one day kneeling before the chest in their room, reverently examining the crested helmet that Marcus had worn with such pride."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Home

**Author's Note:**

> A Christmas ficlet for Tracy7307.

When Conn was small, he had often played at being a soldier, with a stick for his sword and a cracked cooking pot for a helmet, charging about the yard and shouting war cries in British and Latin.

"Hail, Centurion," Marcus salutes him, straight-faced and solemn. "What are my marching orders?"

Conn furrows his brow in thought. What orders would be worthy for his father, and a good use of his own authority as the six-year-old Centurion Aquila?

"You could...go on a mission to find and liberate some savillum from Cordaella?" Marcus nods seriously. "And you must find Papa so we can share with him," Conn adds, getting more comfortable with the giving of orders. "Look sharp, soldier!"

Marcus salutes smartly again and waits until he is well out of earshot to burst into laughter.

As Conn grows and begins increasingly to take after Esca, the soldiering games become fewer and fewer. Occasionally, he will still clamour for Marcus to tell him stories of the army-- insisting that they be in Latin, as they were when he first heard them as a toddler--long past the time when he is too grown up and proud to curl up in Marcus' lap to listen.

And as Esca bore their son's soldiering games with good grace, so Marcus has tried to accept that Conn would not be one for following the Eagles after all.

But when Conn is fourteen, and Esca has given him a second year colt of his own and a hound puppy to train for the hunting trail, Marcus finds him one day kneeling before the chest in their room, reverently examining the crested helmet that Marcus had worn with such pride.

He startles when Marcus clears his throat. "I was only looking," Conn mumbles, and Marcus comes to kneel stiffly down beside him.

"You know," Marcus says, running his fingers over the faded scarlet cloak, "that you could do nothing to make me any less proud to have you for my son. You need not follow the Eagles out of fear for that." He smiles a little. "Esca would box my ears if he thought I had ever given you to think so."

Conn smiles back weakly. "And if I wanted to go of my own accord, would--would he still be proud too?"

Their son has grown into a fine young man, and his voice hardly quivers at all, but Marcus can still see the little boy he had been, who would never admit it but who very desperately needed his father's reassurance.

"Of course he would be," Marcus says, putting a hand on Conn's shoulder. He wants to wrap him into a hug, but he is mindful of the boy's pride. "He will be proud that you have chosen your own road, no matter where it will lead you."

It is two more years before Conn might leave, but Marcus has not often known him to turn aside from a goal once he has set it. A grief it will be on them to see him sent to Mithras knows what far-flung corner of the empire, but it must be Conn's choice to make, and they could never begrudge it.

"Must I tell him today?" Conn asks, and Marcus shakes his head.

"When you are sure. Shall I first speak with him on your behalf?"

"No! It should come from me, only from me."

"So it should," Marcus says, getting to his feet. He had expected no less than that courage from their boy.

There is sorrow in Esca, and quiet anger too, when Conn kneels at his feet and tells him of his plan, but it is only Marcus who sees those things. To Conn, Esca shows only love and pride from the very first.

"Marching with the Eagles will do nothing to change the man you've grown to be," he says, pulling Conn to his feet. "And it is in my heart that you could have a worse example to follow." He smiles, and Marcus knows that everything will be well.

When the day comes for Conn to join his legion at Eburacum, he stands before them looking very fine in Marcus' old armour, polished to a bright shine, with the fine British-worked dagger that is a parting gift from Esca thrust through his belt.

"I could not be more proud of you," Esca says, pressing his fist to the armour over the lad's heart, and there is no shadow over his words. "Be well, Conn."

Conn can only nod, striving bravely to keep back the tears standing in his eyes.

Marcus offers him a salute, as he had done in those long-ago days in the garden, but today it is a solemn gesture from one soldier to another. "You should have this," he says then, slipping off the green signet ring and pressing it into Conn's palm. "To help you remember that you are a credit to your family, wherever you are."

"I will," Conn whispers. "I will remember."

And then, with one last crashing salute, he is astride his horse and galloping down the road, a fine, proud figure in the bright noonday sun.


End file.
